Category Archives: Leadership Lessons

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Are you THAT kind of leader?

Do you give leadership a bad name?

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Are you THAT kind of leader?

We all know “that” kind of leader. And we have all experienced the pain of trying work follow and work with one like “that.” But, what is “that?”

Today I am talking about leaders who give leadership a bad name. Well, what do you mean by that? Isn’t leadership a noble thing? Absolutely it is a noble and worthy endeavor. And there are many examples of fine leaders and fine leadership. But knowing is not the same as doing or being.

Many years ago I was presented with a paradigm of leadership that resonated 35 years ago when I was a young man. And that paradigm still resonates today. It is the paradigm that suggests that the higher up in leadership you ascend, the less personal freedoms you have. The corporate world teaches us the opposite. And the culture of celebrity is even more brazen in the teaching and modeling of a paradigm where the richer or more powerful and famous I become, the more freedom I have to act like an absolute idiot at times and experience no repercussions.

Thankfully, leadership is not the same as celebrity! Thankfully, there are leaders out there who shun the mantle of the obnoxious and instead wear the cloak of a servant leader.

So, what kind of leader are you?

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How Important Are YOUR Results?

What should we be doing as followers?

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How Important are YOUR Results?

It is easy to follow a “winner.” And it is easy to follow when everything is chugging along nicely and the organization is experiencing success, growth, profitability, everyone feels valued and appreciated by their leader.

So, what do we do when our leader isn’t leading us in a positive direction of if there are not positive and measurable results? That is a very different situation, isn’t it?

Who is at fault?

That is probably the first thing that jumps to most of our minds. (OK, maybe that is only in my mind.) And I suppose there is a time and there is a place for that kind of an assessment. But, what if we are in a crisis mode? Then that is not the time to be assigning blame. That is the time to rally around the leader, get things fixed, and get the ship turned around.

What is MY responsibility at this point?

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The Discomfort of Thought

Are your opinions well thought out?

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Discomfort of Thought

Opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody has one. And some of them are a little funky.

I am sorry for those initial thoughts which you are now desperately trying not to visualize. However, my point is that we all have belly buttons and we all have opinions. But, when was the last time you really examined your belly button? When was the last time you really considered the basis of your opinions?

President John F. Kennedy, in a commencement address to the graduating class of 1962 at Yale University on June 11, 1962, said the following:

We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

This statement came following some opening humorous remarks to the Yale graduating class of 1962. Following a few opening barbs thrown at some of his political detractors, he began to discuss the importance fiscal policy and the role of government in the lives of our society.

If you have time to read the transcript of President Kennedy’s speech, I encourage you to do so. You can find it here. And, if you want to hear him deliver the speech in his own words, you can hear a recording here.

So, what is the leadership lesson from President Kennedy’s commencement address?

In order to learn a leadership lesson from this speech, you must first read a few more of the words that form the context of this one quote. And, please note, his speech was very fertile ground for great quotes. Kennedy said this just prior to the sentence that I pulled out of the 30-minute speech.

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Listening To An Old Soundtrack

What “tune” is stuck in your head?

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Listening to An Old Soundtrack

Every one of us has a soundtrack playing inside our head. It is a recording of the things that people have said to us over the years. For many of us, we remember what was said to us and just how it made us feel at the time. We remember it like it was yesterday. We seem to remember those events even though we long to forget them.

Many things that were said to us make us sad. Some of them make us mad. Many of them were hurtful at the time.

What does this have to do with leadership?

As a leader, it is important to remember the role that we play in our follower’s lives. In many teams or project situations, we find that we spend much more time with our workmates than we do with our families.

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Turn It Upside Down

A Lesson from the Sandbox

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Turn It Upside Down

Let’s take one final look at some leadership lessons that I observed from the last two weekends that I spent playing with my youngest grandson in various sandboxes. The actions were simple. But the implications were profound.

Turn it upside down

Let me just offer a quick reminder of what went on in our little backyard sandbox. After a while of pouring sand in a little yellow funnel and watching it fall through the little hole and make the little red wheels spin and fall through a little sifting screen, my grandson got a little bored. So, what did he do? He turned the contraption upside down and started the process at what is actually the bottom of the toy. Did it work like it was supposed to? Of course not. But did he have fun and laugh at how it looked? Yes, he did. And isn’t that the point of playing in the sandbox?

What is the leadership lesson?

The leadership lesson is this. Let’s always keep our eyes on the goal that we have set for ourselves and not on the tools that we use. The goal of the activity was to have fun. It was not to use the contraption to only sift sand and make the wheels spin.

Sometimes we get so enamored with the tools that we have at our disposal that we forget that they are the means to an end. They are not the end itself. The end game was to have fun in the sand. And fun we had!

Sometimes we get so enamored with the tools that we have at our disposal that we forget that they are the means to an end.
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What does it mean to “Turn it upside down?”

One of the most oft-repeated mantras in business is this:

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Go To The Source

A Lesson from the Sandbox

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Go to the Source

There is still so much more to say about the leadership lessons that I learned while playing in the sandbox recently with my youngest grandson.

As you may recall, we were playing in the sandbox in the backyard and he was trying to fill up a little red duck water pitcher.  A few days ago we discussed the need to shake things up in order to increase the capacity of our leadership abilities. Much as I shook that little pitcher and gave it a little shake to let the sand settle, we need to shake up our routine a little in order to accomplish more.

Now let’s look at my second observation in a little more detail.

Go to the source

Although my little grandson had access to all the sand in the sandbox, he always wanted to use the sand that I was accumulating in whatever container I was using at any given moment. He was surrounded by sand. But, “Papa’s sand was the best sand” as far as he was concerned. And really, why collect or gather your own sand when you can ask for the old Tupperware container that Papa has and pour that sand into your sandwheel spinning contraption.

What is the leadership lesson?

Go to the “source” whenever possible. Last weekend, I was the source of the “good sand” in my little grandson’s world. He could have dug up a bunch of sand on his own. But, why do that when there is plenty of sand available in Papa’s container? And what’s more, I was happy to share it with him. If you have access to the source of whatever you need, utilize it and maximize it. Then, you can use your finite energy and resources on accumulating the harder stuff of life.

What is the “Source?”

I could take a very theological approach to the question, “What is the source?” However, I will leave that to others. Instead, I want to take a more practical approach. Here is how I want to define “source” today.

The source is anyone who has a wealth of experiences that you do not yet have.

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Shake It Up and Find Capacity

A Lesson from the Sandbox

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Capacity

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life. — Muhammad Ali

As you saw on Monday, it was a great weekend at my house. What made it so great was getting to spend some quality time with my youngest grandchild.

In the article that I published on Monday, there were several things that I observed while playing with him in the sandbox. While playing, I saw a couple of leadership lessons emerge as we played together in the sand. They are worth expanding on a little more and that is the intent of this article today.

Remember, our little sandbox is set up for the grandkids to play in when they are around. it is a typical sandbox and the filling, flowing, emptying of sand from container to strainer to container caused me to think about leadership in ways that I was not expecting.

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
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Shake it up to get more in it

My youngest grandson was diligently trying to fill a red plastic duck with sand. The duck is actually a watering pitcher for a window garden. But on Saturday, it was an integral component of a major sand filling production. He would take a little shovel and try to get the sand into a round hole on the top of the duck’s head. After many little shovelfuls, he had it completely full. Or so he thought. All it took was a gentle shake and the sand began to settle and fill in a few air pockets. Seconds later there was now more room in the duck and it was not even close to being full. So, we filled it up again. And I jiggled it again. And the sand settled again. And we filled it one more time.

What is the leadership lesson?

Sometimes we think we have reached our limit or come to full capacity. But, if we just shake ourselves up a little bit and establish some new habits, we will be able to take on a little more load and increase our individual capacity. I don’t advocate this approach to all aspects of life all the time. But we rarely reach our true capacity the first time that we think we do.

Chuck Norris, of Walker, Texas Ranger fame, says this.

I’ve always found that anything worth achieving will always have obstacles in the way and you’ve got to have that drive and determination to overcome those obstacles on route to whatever it is that you want to accomplish.

One of the biggest obstacles that we face is the obstacle of “capacity.” We often think that we have reached our limit and that we have no more capacity to do anything. We are exhausted. We are done. We feel that we just can’t go on.

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Lessons from the Sandbox 

What playing in the sandbox with my grandson taught me about leadership

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Lessons from the Sandbox

It was a great weekend at my house.  I got to spend some quality time with my youngest grandchild. While playing with him in the sandbox, I saw a couple of leadership lessons emerge from the actions that my little grandson took as we played together in the sand. They may not be the most profound that you will ever hear. But they struck me and drove home a few points that I will not soon forget.

Our little sandbox is set up for the grandkids to play in when they are around. I recently replaced the old sand and dirt with a fine grain play sand that will flow like the sand in an hourglass. The filling, flowing, emptying sand from container to strainer to container caused me to think about leadership in ways that I was not expecting. Here they are:

Shake it up to get more in it

My youngest grandson was diligently trying to fill a red plastic duck with sand. The duck is actually a watering pitcher for a window garden. But on Saturday, it was an integral component of a major sand filling production. He would take a little shovel and try to get the sand into a round hole on the top of the duck’s head. After many little shovelfuls, he had it completely full. Or so he thought. All it took was a gentle shake and the sand began to settle and fill in a few air pockets. Seconds later there was now more room in the duck and it was not even close to being full. So, we filled it up again. And I jiggled it again. And the sand settled again. And we filled it one more time.

What is the leadership lesson?

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Where Do Leaders Go For Help?

Even leaders need it!

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Where Does A Leaders Go For Help?

Even leaders need help. Or, maybe I should say, “Especially leaders need help.” I am not sure if that is the right way to say that grammatically, but I think you get my point.

I have been doing leadership coaching, working with non-profit boards, and doing one-on-one coaching for many years. Several years ago I founded Leadership Voices, a collaborative site for all kinds of leaders. Over the last few years, we have grown this community from nothing to more than 2500 “followers.”

Resting on current achievements has never been a part of my operating procedures. And recently I began to feel a real need to reach out to get some help and advice. But, just where does a leader go for help? That is the question facing me and probably many of you as well. Who can I turn to for help and advice on what I am doing wrong and what I am doing right?

So, here is what I did.

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Leadership Capital – Part 1 

Earned in Pennies and Spent in Pounds

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Leadership Capital - Part 1

How do you measure leadership acumen? How is it measured as it gained? How is it measured as it is expended?  Is there a subjective scale or is there an objective scale? And if so, what would be the markings or gradations?

These are the questions that I am grappling with today as I contemplate a variation on a quote that I have come up with in the last few days.

“Leadership capital is earned in pennies and spent in pounds.”

'Leadership capital is earned in pennies and spent in pounds.'
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OK, I am not British and I realize that our currency is dollars. However, the point of the quote is that leadership capital is “earned” in small increments and it is often expended in larger denominations.

But before we can really talk about how it is gained or how it is spent, we need to get a handle on just what is “leadership capital?”

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